Bush campaign on defensive amid new questions on Iraq pre-war intelligence

[JoFerret]

Lockhart on the attack for Kerry - the president needs to answer...

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1521&ncid=703&e=7&u=/afp/20041003/pl_afp/us_vote

...
...John Kerry's campaign spokesman Joe Lockhart said the report is a stinging indictment of the Bush administration's prewar intelligence and foreign policy judgment.

"I think it raises some serious questions," Lockhart told CBS television's "Face the Nation" program.

"Secretary (of State Colin) Powell went up and based most of his assessment on Saddam's nuclear threat on these aluminum tubes to the United Nations. That he did in public. Condoleezza Rice raised the specter of a mushroom cloud. That is sobering to all Americans. Vice President Cheney said this was a fact. He didn't say there was debate. He said this was a fact.

"This is about what the president knew, what he withheld from the American public, if anything," Lockhardt said. "These are questions he should answer now."

The report is another blow to White House credibility on foreign policy ....
<more>

[molly]

1. Rated 4.67 with 86 votes

the Iraqi scientist was on this morning discussing those tubes. He said everyone knew that they were the wrong size for nuclear weapons.

[punpirate]

7. Wrong size...

... wrong weight, wrong material composition (anodizing would have been eaten up by uranium hexafluoride and gummed up the process).

It was all part of an elaborate scheme of lies, and unfortunately, it was technical enough in nature that assurances from the CIA and the White House were enough to confuse most Senators and members of the House. There were experts at the NRC and in the IAEA who had disputed this evidence out of hand, but they weren't testifying--Tenet was, and he was ever-eager to please his masters.

Cheney has wanted this war for fifteen years.

What's so friggin' irritating about all this is that most of this was known well before the start of the war, and a majority of the American people chose, instead, to believe these amoral monsters, and choose now to go on disbelieving what their own eyes tell them about the results of that war. :mad:

[Mojambo]

2. Rate it people.

The Freepers are going to try to rip this one down fast.

[MatrixEscape]

3. Early?

Is it too soon for George and Laura to start scoping out what to scarf when they pack up and leave the White House?

I would advise they make a check-list at this point! :cry:

[daleo]

4. CNN - Jan 30, 2003

Here is how the lying went, way back when.

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, you remember the aluminum tube story? I
don't know how many of our viewers recall, but sometime back, there were stories about how Bush administration
officials said they have evidence that Iraq tried to buy aluminum tubes which could be used for reprocessing
uranium.

Subsequently, and this is kind of the conventional wisdom that's out there now, Mr. ElBaradei, the head of the
International Atomic Energy Agency, said publicly that they did not accept that that's what those tubes were for, that it
looked to them as if they were for conventional rocket tubes, and they didn't believe that they had a nuclear purpose.

What I've learned now from senior intelligence officials is that they have a fair amount of evidence that they regard as
convincing, and you may hear this evidence listed by Colin Powell next week, starting off with the fact that there was
high level Iraqi senior -- senior Iraqi interest in this purchase.

Secondly, that it was clandestine in nature. This was done with the utmost secrecy, the purchase -- the attempted
purchase of these tubes.

Thirdly, the price paid. The Iraqis were willing to pay -- apparently, a huge black market price to get tubes they could
have bought on the open market, if they were just for conventional rockets, which the Iraqis are allowed to have.

And finally, and perhaps most importantly, officials say, the Iraqis insisted on a specificity, in millimeters, precision
about the kinds of tubes they wanted to buy. That would not be necessary if you were using them simply as tubes for
conventional rockets, but would be needed if you wish to use those tubes, those pipes, as part of a uranium
reprocessing plant.

So, again, a majority of U.S. intelligence officials believe, I'm told, that these tubes were purchased for reprocessing
uranium, and not for conventional rockets. And finally, the argument by IAEA officials that the tubes were the wrong
length, that they were the wrong size, that they would have had to be changed, one official said to me, all you need to
do is take a saw and cut them to the right length, and they're perfect for reprocessing uranium.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: I assume they have pretty good intelligence on that. The president repeated that allegation in his State of
the Union address. I doubt the intelligence community would have recommended that he do so if he didn't have that
kind of hard intelligence that you're talking about. We will hear more about that, of course, in the coming days. David
Ensor, thanks very much for your reporting.

[krkaufman]

6. Excellent reporting on the reporting. Ensor and Wolfie were perfect...

... little lapdogs for the bits the admin fed them.

Let's totally discount the international experts on nukes, and, instead, take circumstantial evidence, hearsay really, on faith from a biased source.

[krkaufman]

5. "the president didn't have an answer"

Lockhart: But Bush "didn't know how to handle" the real John Kerry. "It was a guy who was clear, who was consistent, and the president didn't have an answer."

Hell, how can Bush have answers when his knowledge is so limited that he doesn't even understand the questions?

[acmavm]

8. 2:48 p.m. CST: Its current average rating is 4.49 with 155 vote(s).

.

[AndyTiedye]

9. Fodder for the VP Debate as Well

Cheney has particularly pushed the Iraq-AQ connection.
Edwards should hammer him on this in their debate!

[bluedeminredstate]

10. Support the Troops!!!

Anyone who doesn't want to know how our men and women ended up in a war, when the information presented to the public differs from information used by the WH to make life and death decisions obviously is trying to undermine the troops and make the enemy stronger!

C'mon! Turn this usual Freeper horseshit around and make anyone who would want to cover this up someone who doesn't support the troops!

Don't the troops deserve the answer to this very serious question? Don't the American people deserve it? True patriots wouldn't want to avoid the truth to protect people who would send the troops to a war that has no fronts, where the troops are buying their own protective gear, where the troops are making a fraction of the "privatized" soldiers for the same dangerous work - no, someone who really loves America would be terribly upset to see this happening!!

[Wilber_Stool]

11. 4.45@257___n/t

[Barrett808]

12. 4.43 with 276 votes n/t

[baby_bear]

13. This story has traction and staying power

Three full pages in the NYTimes, and then w/ Condi's fumbling on all the shows this morning, this story is being reported all over the world. Just click on http://news.google.com/ -

The truth may just finally come out and people may finally pay attention.

We can hope.

s_m

[mom cat]

14. Keep this in their f'n face!